Information & history on back of piece:
04-625 Collecting Shells;   Collecting shells is so much fun they shine so pretty in the sun.

04-626 Coastal Birds;   Birds, birds everywhere, performing antics in the air!

04-621 Passage Island Lighthouse, Michigan;   "The United States Lighthouse Service issued big, heavy wool blankets, Anna begins, "My mom would wait for a special day to wash these blankets, a day that was just right on Passage Island.....Mother would hang these prized blankets, the only real security we had that we would be warm, on the clothesline outside our back door after washing them.  My little brother had a strap harness, and he was tied to the clothesline.  This way, we knew he wouldn't blow off the island...One perfect washday, Mom had the freshly laundered blankets on the line...when one of those dreaded, sudden storms came charging in...my sister's duty was to lie on top of little Sonny so he wouldn't blow away....I remember the strong wind and those big blankets sailing out across Lake Superior - they looked like flying carpets!"
An excerpt from the book Lighthouse Families by Cheryl Shelton-Roberts and Bruce Roberts, Crane Hill Publishers, Birmingham, Alabama, 1997, pp. 44-45.

04-622 St. Augustine Lighthouse, Florida;   "Every aspect of the lighthouse fascinated Cracker, especially the height of the tower, and he spent most of his money on model airplanes....Perhaps seeing Charlie Chaplin and his famous umbrella in a movie inspired Wilma to buy an umbrella....usingit as a parachute and jumping off the garage roof....Cracker had watched the whole thing...his attention suddenly shifted from model airplanes to parachutes.  Within a few days he had tested several model parachutes by dropping them from the lighthouse catwalk at the very top of the tower.  He perfected a final prototype....when Wilma's cat, Smoky, just happened to casually stroll by the window.  Cracker's model parachute was just right for a cat, and so up to the top of the lighthouse they went.  Cracker remembers standing on the appropriately named "catwalk".... He carefully tied the unsuspecting cat to the parachute and let go....not a soul other than himself saw Smoky drop from the top of the tower and float down the 160-plus feet to the ground.  All four of Smoky's feet were scrambling during his semi-free fall, and he hit the ground running....About a month later Smoky came back."
An excerpt from the book Lighthouse Families by Cheryl Shelton-Roberts and Bruce Roberts, Crane Hill Publishers, Birmingham, Alabama, 1997, pp. 63-64.

04-623 Cape Flattery Lighthouse, Washington;   "I remember waking up Christmas Eve morning and hearing the wind whip and whistle outside my second-story bedroom....if it was too windy and foggy, Uncle Jim wouldn't be able to land his boat - Christmas would be ruined!'...'Now don't worry Little One,' her father replied, 'Things will go as they should, and it isn't for you or me to try to control them.  God will provide, and we will be thankful for what He gives us.'  Her mother had added, 'Christmas will happen, Marian, because our family is together, and we will make the best of it, no matter what today brings.'"
An excerpt from the book Lighthouse Families by Cheryl Shelton-Roberts and Bruce Roberts, Crane Hill Publishers, Birmingham, Alabama, 1997, pp. 70-71.

04-624 Outer Island Lighthouse, Wisconsin;   "'I knew where every sandbar and boulder lay close beneath the surging waters, where the best wild berries could be found, heard the sound of wailing wind and laughing loons, and saw the soaring eagles high atop the jack pines.....Unforgettable will be the scenes of meteors flashing across the great white Milky Way, the exotic dancing of the northern lights, and most of all, falling asleep watching the rays of the lighthouse fingering its beams through a foggy and rainy night and listening to the cry of that lone timber wolf....Sounds of the universe-that abounding network of interwoven restless energy, everywhere and in everything.  It is from Outer Island that I have come to firmly believe that there is a compelling bond between the ways of nature and our very own human behavior.  I truly believe it is all tied together....and I wouldn't change my life of living on that island...for anything in this whole world.'"
An excerpt from the book Lighthouse Families by Cheryl Shelton-Roberts and Bruce Roberts, Crane Hill Publishers, Birmingham, Alabama, 1997, pp. 182-184.